Kantner Hijacks Starship For A New Generation

Paul Kantner Hopes His New Starship Flies

Twenty-two years after the album of the same name, Paul Kantner is going out on a "Blows Against the Empire" tour.

And he's doing it by hijacking the name that eventually became the slick, bland hitmakers mid-'80s Starship.

"It needed doing, too," Kantner says over the phone from his San Francisco home. "There's an adolescent thrill in re-hijacking the Starship."

FOR THE RECORD - Jefferson Starship: the Next Generation performs tonight at the Sting, 667 Main St., New Britain. Doors open at 7 p.m. Further information is available by calling 225-2154. In a story on Page D1 Tuesday, the number to call for more information was incorrect.

Kantner, a founding member of Jefferson Airplane, helped engineer the evolution of that groundbreaking psychedelic band into the Jefferson Starship in 1974.

At the time, the change was reflective of both the band's shifting personnel and his own interest in science fiction.

But when he quit the band in 1984, he also took the Jefferson part of the name, the last remaining vestige of the influential Haight-Ashbury band of the late '60s.

The remaining Starship, which managed to have a couple of hits with vocalist Mickey Thomas at the helm, fizzled a couple of years ago.

"They fell apart," Kantner says, sounding a bit self-satisfied. "Which I told them they would do, even with the No. 1 hits. But they didn't believe me.

"If they had not been named Starship, they probably could have been [a] credible band on their own," he says. "But they wanted to keep the name to bank on the old audience -- who didn't get what they wanted when they came to the shows."

Kantner says that the old Airplane audience will be better served by what he is billing, with even more of a sci-fi spin, Jefferson Starship: the New Generation.

Despite the new generation moniker, there is a definite older skew to the lineup of the band, which is currently on its first short East Coast tour, playing the Sting in New Britain Wednesday.

Besides Kantner, who turns 50 next month, the group includes probably the oldest still-touring rock musician, latter-day Airplane violinist Papa John Creach, 74; and Airplane bassist Jack Casady, 47, who continues to tour with Hot Tuna.

The band is rounded out by former Tubes drummer Prairie Prince, who tours with Todd Rundgren; Darby Gould, who also sings for the San Francisco band World Entertainment War; keyboardist Tim Gorman, who performed on reunion tours with both Jefferson Airplane and the Who; and guitarist Slick Aguilar, who played formerly with both David Crosby and Kantner's solo project, the KBC Band.

Kantner hints that his ex-wife and fellow Airplane and Starship singer Grace Slick, 52, would have taken part in the current project, but she is involved with some other business for the time being.

Slick is part of a separate recording project Kantner is working on that features four other female vocalists: original Airplane vocalist Signe Anderson, folk's Ronnie Gilbert, gospel's Tramaine Hawkins and his current Starship singer, Gould.

Slick will also take part in an ambitious staging later this year of the 1970 album "Blows Against the Empire," which originally came out with the Jefferson Starship title (although that band would not surface until four years later). Like the original album, it will include the participation of Jerry Garcia, David Crosby, Graham Nash and others. The onetime staging won't tour, Kantner says, but will possibly be filmed for cable TV distribution.

There is no plan to record with the current lineup of Jefferson Starship: The New Generation, but again Kantner borrows the aviation terms that have dominated his most famous bands.

"We're like an experimental aircraft. We'll take it up and see how it flies," he says. "It usually works better with a new band by going out and playing live first -- that's at the heart of most music. If you can move somebody live, then you have something."

That's what happened with the Airplane, which formed in 1965 and played all over San Francisco, before they released their first album the following year.

"We've never been a recording band in that sense," he says, speaking of his various incarnations of Jefferson. "Whatever we do, it usually starts in front of a group of people."

The last time the Jefferson Airplane toured was in 1989, for a successful tour and an unsuccessful album.

"We had a good time on stage," Kantner says. "But a bad time off stage dealing with everybody's agents and managers. We'll probably do it again in a year or two."

Again, he says Slick is the only one who might not take part.

"We're all pretty iconoclastic people. That was the strength of the Airplane, we all came in with [a] different viewpoint."

In the meantime, the current touring band is doing a generous amount of old Airplane material -- from "Wooden Ships," "Volunteers," "Crown of Creation" and "We Can Be Together" to "Madeleine Street" and "Have You Seen the Saucers?"

The Starship song list includes "Ride the Tiger,' "Girl with the Hungry Eyes," "Caroline," "Blows Against the Empire" and "I'll Fly Away."

At least one song will come from Kantner's KBC band, "America," and Creach and Gould will each contribute a new song.

But Kantner has been busy writing, and will present new songs. "Some address politics," he says. "Some address science ficiton. Or

outlaws. One is about a woman serial killer of Republicans, written in Jonathan Swiftian mode. There's another song that says, `The sky is full of ships tonight' -- science fiction stuff."

As for the lifespan of the Next Generation, Kantner is noncommittal and finally returns to aviation metaphors. "It's blending together really nicely. I could take this for as long as it flies."

Jefferson Starship: the Next Generation performs at 9 p.m. Wednesday at the Sting, 667 Main St., New Britain. Tickets are $10 in advance, $15 the day of the show. For more information, call 225-2185